This article was written in 2012. It might or it might not be outdated. And it could be that the layout breaks. If that’s the case please let me know.

Will Be Published Soon HTTP Status Header

I think we could use a new HTTP Status Header which explains that the content you are looking for will be published but is not there yet. You could use 404 for this, but you could use 404 for just about everything. It’s vague.

Use cases: Marco Arment created a magazine which is immediately accessible for people with an iOs device. These articles will probably be published on the web in a few weeks so we can actually link to them. A special header would be good in this case. Right now every article does have a URL, but there’s just some placeholder text there. A special header would be useful for tools like Pinpoard.

Another example: I create a bi-weekly video podcast with Peet Sneekes, a colleague of mine. The URL structure is pretty easy: domain/nnn, where nnn stands for episode number. Now I wouldn’t want to send a Will Be Published header if someone is looking for episode number 999, I’m pretty sure it will not be published. But I am sure that episode number 020 will be published in the next coming days. We actually link to it already. Right now you will get a 404, but I think another header would be more appropriate here.